Possible modification of metastasis from adenocarcinoma of the prostate by colchicine: a case report

Laboratory data indicate that colchicine has an antimetastatic effect in tissue culture and in tumor-transplantation experiments in animals. The present case report reveals a lack of perineural and capsular invasion as well as distant metastases from a large adenocarcinoma of the prostate in a 63-year-old patient who had taken colchicine daily for 25 years prior to lesion discovery. Failure to demonstrate metastasis was unexpected both because of lesion size (estimated volume 4.4 ml) as well as its histopathology (Gleason pattern 3S, grade 6). Colchicine may have inhibited metastasis of activated Ki-ras oncogenes during oncogenesis along neural microtubules in the area because of the known inhibitory effect of this drug on particle transport along the microtubule component of the cytoskeleton. Colchicine at therapeutic doses for gout may simultaneously inhibit metastasis of other types of malignancies in man.